JavaScript Has Won: Run Flash with Mozilla Shumway and Develop Silverlight in JS with Fayde
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Well this is some amazing news that has been a long time coming. You can take your Flash apps and run them without Flash, and take your Silverlight apps and (almost) run them without Silverlight.
If you still don't think JavaScript has won the web, please read on.
Shumway - Flash in JavaScript and HTML 5
The Mozilla Project "Shumway" has been a long time coming (as long ago as 2012, but it's now ready to be looked at more deeply).
Chris Peterson, a Program Manager on the Mozilla Shumway says:
"Shumway is in a race to stay relevant as Flash fades from the web, but there will always be a long-tail of Flash content that would/will be lost when Adobe or browsers stop supporting the Flash plugin."
Think about that. We've all largely got "Evergreen Browsers" now that update themselves as often as weekly, but sometimes it feels like Adobe Flash is being attacked daily, so we're told to update that as well. Flash itself has more than fallen from grace, as Chris points out, it's fading from the web itself. Fast forward a year or so when there is no more Flash installed, but there's still Flash on the web. Enter Shumway - it's a renderer for SWF (Flash files) without native code! Shumway literally.
Why is it called Shumway? Again, Chris:
"The name "Shumway" is derived from "Gordon Shumway", the actual name of the TV character ALF: Flash -> Flash Gordon -> Gordon Shumway -> Shumway."
That's awesome. What else is awesome? "Shumway is written in TypeScript. It has an ActionScript interpreter and a JIT that generates JavaScript, compiled using eval()."
So Shumway is an HTML experiment that uses TypeScript (a modern typed JavaScript compiler/transpiler) to read ActionScript and resources and JIT the result into evaluated JavaScript. Fantastic. It's also open source and on GitHub. Even better, the Firefox Nightly is using Shumway for Flash videos on Amazon.com. This is the beginning of their test, I presume, to sunset Flash in Firefox.
Fayde - Silverlight in JavaScript and HTML5 Canvas
At the same time, there's The Fayde project. Also Open Source, Fayde also compiles to JavaScript. But Fayde transforms Silverlight into HTML5 Canvas and JavaScript! It's an implementation of a XAML engine in JS. Here's a near-Silverlight implementation of the classic Todo application, expressed on the web without plugins. Not enough? Here's a complex Fantasy Football app written in a Silverlight-like environment but running in your browser, again, without Silverlight.
To be clear, there are significant architectural differences between these two projects. Shumway reads the binary SWF format and tries to Be Flash, while Fayde is reimagining, if you will, that takes the Silverlight concepts of ViewModels and Views in XAML and adds TypeScript (a comfortable language for the C#-familiar) with the result rendered on a Canvas. It's not a Silverlight Emulator, it's a Silverlight-like implementation and app development pattern for HTML5. It's open source, and they are looking for participation, so head over and get involved! Fayde may be the Silverlight migration strategy you've been looking for.
Aside: From my perspective, it's not unreasonable to imagine taking something like JSIL (listen to my podcast on this amazing project) or a similar IL->JS system and combine it with Fayde to somehow run XAPs as well.
I love how crazy JavaScript is and what people have been able to do with it. Now, go run this PC Emulator (~virtual machine) written by Fabrice Bellard in JavaScript. It's Linux, on a 486, in your browser, in JavaScript. *brain explodes*
Have a lovely day and enjoy today's Open Web.
About Scott
Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.
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MichaelD - Maybe because it's a closed beta still? It appears to be a commercial project built on top of a number of open source projects? The site still says 2014, I'm not sure when the beta started. Is anyone using it? Is it still developed?
@Scott: It is my understanding that they are approximate with Fayde as far as completion goes, which is why I point it out. :) I have been chatting with the CSHTML5 team over the past few weeks and they are very active... although I would like to see them be open-sourced.
What's important here is FINALLY we are on the path to build a build-once-run-everywhere application, courtesy of JavaScript: You can take Fayde and use TypeScript ("all the way down"), or choose CSHTML5 and use C# ("all the way down") -- which, again, MSFT should have done after Mix'11! Haha, as a Silverlight v1 developer, I will NEVER forgive you guys for stealing the past 4 years of my life. ;p #bitter
Anyways, the point is that JavaScript isn't just an application language (Fayde), but an assembly language (CSHTML5/JSIL) as well. It has indeed won the web (and I would argue, everything else once hardware/performance catches up to it). Pick your poison!
What's important here is FINALLY we are on the path to build a build-once-run-everywhere application, courtesy of JavaScript: You can take Fayde and use TypeScript ("all the way down"), or choose CSHTML5 and use C# ("all the way down") -- which, again, MSFT should have done after Mix'11! Haha, as a Silverlight v1 developer, I will NEVER forgive you guys for stealing the past 4 years of my life. ;p #bitter
Anyways, the point is that JavaScript isn't just an application language (Fayde), but an assembly language (CSHTML5/JSIL) as well. It has indeed won the web (and I would argue, everything else once hardware/performance catches up to it). Pick your poison!
While Silverlight is many things it is primarily about the features and productivity achieved through leveraging XAML with C#. It's a stretch to call anything "Silverlight" if it lacks both of these core capabilities.
Fayde shows tremendous progress and I appreciate the developer's efforts. However, in our effort to embrace JS it is important to realize that Fayde is not a likely endpoint for existing Silverlight applications. Fayde's primary focus is around XAML and TypeScript scenarios, not Silverlight.
Fayde shows tremendous progress and I appreciate the developer's efforts. However, in our effort to embrace JS it is important to realize that Fayde is not a likely endpoint for existing Silverlight applications. Fayde's primary focus is around XAML and TypeScript scenarios, not Silverlight.
My simple question: Do you really know the current state of Shumway?
Have you tryed it?
Have you tryed it?
FYI, you can easily check the MASSIVE issue list.
https://github.com/mozilla/shumway/issues
https://github.com/mozilla/shumway/issues
Shaun - I think MVVM and the XAML layout engine were Silverlight's strengths. C# was somewhat secondary. Regardless, TypeScript is a very friendly onboarding for C# folks to JS, and that combined with XAML a makes Fayde compelling.
Yabe - Indeed. All beta software has issues. But if we can emulator a complete PC in JavaScript, I'm sure that Shunway can fix their issues for Flash.
Yabe - Indeed. All beta software has issues. But if we can emulator a complete PC in JavaScript, I'm sure that Shunway can fix their issues for Flash.
I'd say SilverLight's strength was a Microsoft supported cross platform .Net CLR that could run in browser or on desktop for both Windows and Mac clients while providing a better than Click Once update experience. That and PivotViewer =)
I think Shunway is targeted for 2015 according to this presentation about Mozilla's plans for this year.
Scott, do you think this (and projects like asm.js) will turn all applications to be Javascript applications but no body is actually writing Javascript?
Scott, do you think this (and projects like asm.js) will turn all applications to be Javascript applications but no body is actually writing Javascript?
@Michael, don't forget DataForm!!! <3 The best control EVER! And it still hasn't been ported anywhere successfully, either. Such a shame. Not only was it a great control it was FREE. Man, the Silverlight team was just the best. Tops. Silverlight5 was the best tech to ever come out of MSFT by a long shot. And now it looks like it will arise again in one form or another soon. So exciting.
Also, a quick word about TypeScript and making it friendly to JS. It really comes down to what you are using for your backend technology now as far as adopting TS goes. That's really the key here. If you are doing node.js, then Fayde/TypeScript makes perfect sense. However, if you are using C# as your backend, then JSIL/CSHTML5 will make more sense (I still think an entire MSFT division should be dedicated to making an official JSIL.NET, but hey).
Otherwise, you will have 1 language for client, and 1 language for backend, and you won't be able to share code between the two... and that's exactly the scenario that Silverlight addressed and made possible. That is, you could share code (extension methods, especially) and components between backend and client and have them work exactly the same between the two tiers.
My final (hopefully, *smile*) word about this is that (speaking to @Yabe's point)... we're about another year or so before these projects are really viable. I for one will be focused on Xamarin.Forms during this time as Xamarin is more mature and has the strongest cross-platform solution in .NET currently. However, if they do not adopt a JavaScript-based solution like JSIL, they will be in jeopardy (IMO) going forward.
Thanks for posting this great article, Scott... and for engaging your readers!
Also, a quick word about TypeScript and making it friendly to JS. It really comes down to what you are using for your backend technology now as far as adopting TS goes. That's really the key here. If you are doing node.js, then Fayde/TypeScript makes perfect sense. However, if you are using C# as your backend, then JSIL/CSHTML5 will make more sense (I still think an entire MSFT division should be dedicated to making an official JSIL.NET, but hey).
Otherwise, you will have 1 language for client, and 1 language for backend, and you won't be able to share code between the two... and that's exactly the scenario that Silverlight addressed and made possible. That is, you could share code (extension methods, especially) and components between backend and client and have them work exactly the same between the two tiers.
My final (hopefully, *smile*) word about this is that (speaking to @Yabe's point)... we're about another year or so before these projects are really viable. I for one will be focused on Xamarin.Forms during this time as Xamarin is more mature and has the strongest cross-platform solution in .NET currently. However, if they do not adopt a JavaScript-based solution like JSIL, they will be in jeopardy (IMO) going forward.
Thanks for posting this great article, Scott... and for engaging your readers!
I'm just getting into MVVM with Xamarin and wondering why I didn't dive into Silverlight and WPF years ago... MVVM is awesome! One of the thoughts I've had while learning MVVM is "why can't we write true MVVM-pattern apps for web as well -- it would solve so many problems." Here's to solving problems with Fayde!
For MVVM that works across Xamarin iOS, Android, WP 8 and Windows 8, check out Crosslight.
Scott,
Awesome article! It's truly exciting as a Silverlight guy to see these projects get some traction. Thanks for putting this post together and bringing some additional eyes on these amazing projects.
Awesome article! It's truly exciting as a Silverlight guy to see these projects get some traction. Thanks for putting this post together and bringing some additional eyes on these amazing projects.
So, is it the end of plugins like Flash or Silverlight? Is it the end of 'Rich Internet Applications'? Only the JavaScript and related technologies will rule the future web?
Second the mention of knockout.js for mvvm on the web. Additionally check out durandal.js for a knockout based composition engine that allows for some remarkably similar design patterns to silverlight/wpf.
I would like to specify only my layout with WYSIWYG Editor (Silverlight, XAML) and then it should look the same on all platforms and work directly.
Also, I want to be independent of the security and stability of the browsers. (Silverlight App Mode..)
That was the advantage of Silverlight !!!
But why is this broke by MS ?
Also, I want to be independent of the security and stability of the browsers. (Silverlight App Mode..)
That was the advantage of Silverlight !!!
But why is this broke by MS ?
Something else to consider along these lines is the f# websharper project - it's just gone open source and compiles f# into javascript (I think via typescript) lots of demos on their site with canvas
Also there is the funscript project that does something similar but can use d.ts typing to bring in almost any js lib
Does look like js is becoming assembly of the web (sure I read that somewhere ;))
Also there is the funscript project that does something similar but can use d.ts typing to bring in almost any js lib
Does look like js is becoming assembly of the web (sure I read that somewhere ;))
For me it is C# or death (i.e. out of the industry). I can tolerate some JS in the projects I work on but I am actively choosing my jobs and projects based on whether I can use C#. Silverlight with TypeScript is not good enough. Of course there are other acceptable languages like F# or even Python but JS and even TypeScript will never be my main language even if I have to live the industry. I'd rather move into management, business analysis or education than make myself hate programming because I have to work with that abomination. At least for now there is enough backend code that customers want to do in C# for me to be able to work as a web dev and if that goes away and everyone starts using Node there will still be mobile app development for a while.
And no it is not about that I cannot write JS. I know how to write JS and I don't want to do it.
And no it is not about that I cannot write JS. I know how to write JS and I don't want to do it.
Scott, speaking of Silverlight...
Could you please advocate making Lightswitch (the Silverlight part) open source? Microsoft has abandoned us Lightswitch developers (no product development, no roadmaps, no communication with the community...), so I think that would be the perfect solution for everybody.
Anyway, I'll take a look to Fayde, it could be a migration path for my current Lightswitch applications.
Thanks for your worderful blog!
Mario
Could you please advocate making Lightswitch (the Silverlight part) open source? Microsoft has abandoned us Lightswitch developers (no product development, no roadmaps, no communication with the community...), so I think that would be the perfect solution for everybody.
Anyway, I'll take a look to Fayde, it could be a migration path for my current Lightswitch applications.
Thanks for your worderful blog!
Mario
I never understood why MS didn't do one of two things with Silverlight, instead of self inflicting so much harm onto themselves with the way they did it.
1) Open source SL
2) Create a SL -> JSIL+canvas compiler/renderer backend. I doubt it would even take them more than 3-6 months, and everyone would have been happy.
Silverlight strength, even today, is its tools, where developer and designer can work efficiently together.
We developer apps in SL still, and we are still 2-5 times more productive in that platform than anything else when you get into more complicated applications.
SL is a sad sad story from Microsoft, whomever made those decisions I hope is long gone, it is possibly Microsoft's worst ever choice. It is even very likely responsible for the slow update of Windows RT/Store applications. People are just not ready to take that risk, so everyone is waiting for someone to make sure the ground is stable before we walk on it again.
1) Open source SL
2) Create a SL -> JSIL+canvas compiler/renderer backend. I doubt it would even take them more than 3-6 months, and everyone would have been happy.
Silverlight strength, even today, is its tools, where developer and designer can work efficiently together.
We developer apps in SL still, and we are still 2-5 times more productive in that platform than anything else when you get into more complicated applications.
SL is a sad sad story from Microsoft, whomever made those decisions I hope is long gone, it is possibly Microsoft's worst ever choice. It is even very likely responsible for the slow update of Windows RT/Store applications. People are just not ready to take that risk, so everyone is waiting for someone to make sure the ground is stable before we walk on it again.
I've done years of jQuery, Node.js, Express, Angular, Bootstrap, Knockout, Backbone, Foundation, etc and I still think that Javascript + HTML + CSS to build apps is a horrible idea and a waste of time.
Someone needs to make a new type of browser that is built as an actual platform for applications to replace this crap-tastic trio.
Someone needs to make a new type of browser that is built as an actual platform for applications to replace this crap-tastic trio.
Sorry, but I hate knockout with a passion. Slow and bloated, I've never seen anything I could do in knockout that I couldn't do myself in fewer lines (for me, not just overall) in JQuery itself. And don't even get me started on the abomination that is Angular, which won't scale past a demo project...
Hey Scott, we should find a way to translate .NET apps to Canvas!
Hey Scott, we should find a way to translate .NET apps to Canvas!
aagreed, this is a great news.
I hope to see flash content on mobile safari for a long time, with shumway this is technically possible.
Unfortunatly the additional javascript layer is really slow compared to the native C++ flash player executable.
i have tested the simple as3 race game, it's 60 fps when played with flash player.
i wonder if it would be possible for adobe to create a real html-flash-player with tool like emscriptem that convert c++ to js.
I hope to see flash content on mobile safari for a long time, with shumway this is technically possible.
Unfortunatly the additional javascript layer is really slow compared to the native C++ flash player executable.
i have tested the simple as3 race game, it's 60 fps when played with flash player.
i wonder if it would be possible for adobe to create a real html-flash-player with tool like emscriptem that convert c++ to js.
Shumway is an interesting project indeed. I have a few old projects in Flash that would be great to have continue working after Flash sunsets. Unfortunately, it looks like the emulator still has some work to go before it's ready for prime time. Also, some of my favorite Flash games don't seem to work at all yet (MOTAS, Shopping Cart Hero).
A true Silverlight to JS emulator would be interesting as well and definitely have value for my work, as we have a lot of legacy stuff in Silverlight.
A true Silverlight to JS emulator would be interesting as well and definitely have value for my work, as we have a lot of legacy stuff in Silverlight.
Hey Scott, Shumway tech lead here.
Thanks a lot for the nice writeup and kind words. You're right about playing videos on Amazon being the very first step of a broader plan to test Shumway for more and more content. It's restricted to Firefox Nightly for now, but enabling it there allows us to get substantially more feedback. Not necessarily from people who spend their days watching product videos on Amazon, obviously, but the plan is to incrementally broaden the set of white-listed SWFs, so we should get more and more actual usage.
@YABE, Amr, and Sam: Flash is a huge platform that was developed over the course of more than two decades. Creating a drop-in replacement from scratch and only releasing it once every single SWF works, while probably possible, wouldn't be wise, as it would delay the point in time where users start benefiting from the work we do. Instead, we opted for an approach where we target specific SWFs or types of content first to cover as many actual uses of Flash as we can in a certain time frame, extending that list continually.
Thanks a lot for the nice writeup and kind words. You're right about playing videos on Amazon being the very first step of a broader plan to test Shumway for more and more content. It's restricted to Firefox Nightly for now, but enabling it there allows us to get substantially more feedback. Not necessarily from people who spend their days watching product videos on Amazon, obviously, but the plan is to incrementally broaden the set of white-listed SWFs, so we should get more and more actual usage.
@YABE, Amr, and Sam: Flash is a huge platform that was developed over the course of more than two decades. Creating a drop-in replacement from scratch and only releasing it once every single SWF works, while probably possible, wouldn't be wise, as it would delay the point in time where users start benefiting from the work we do. Instead, we opted for an approach where we target specific SWFs or types of content first to cover as many actual uses of Flash as we can in a certain time frame, extending that list continually.
Until there's working video-on-demand and low latency live-streaming support in anything not Flash, Flash will live forever.
You can't really get low latency with HLS or DASH without blowing your bitrate budget by reducing your chunk size, constantly starting small files from scratch. WebRTC is still mostly a pipe dream.
Now if someone would implement RTMP or something equivalent in something fancier and less attack-vectory, that would be glorious.
You can't really get low latency with HLS or DASH without blowing your bitrate budget by reducing your chunk size, constantly starting small files from scratch. WebRTC is still mostly a pipe dream.
Now if someone would implement RTMP or something equivalent in something fancier and less attack-vectory, that would be glorious.
As a response to the comment above mentioning Durandal, please check out Aurelia, the new version of Durandal. And if you'd like to discuss Aurelia, please join us in the Aurelia Gitter channel.
@Lars, Shumway has experimental RTMP support, and we have spun off the RTMP implementation into its own project that can be used to implement standalone video players: https://github.com/yurydelendik/rtmp.js
If a flash replacement sorts out the video perf problem I'll be very happy.
My home is not grid connected so I'm very aware of power usage. h.264 video in something like VLC uses almost no CPU and is very battery friendly. Flash video taxes the CPU more highly and consumes my batteries an order of magnitude faster.
This is a major problem for me with BBC iPlayer: perhaps this project gives me a route towards a solution?
My home is not grid connected so I'm very aware of power usage. h.264 video in something like VLC uses almost no CPU and is very battery friendly. Flash video taxes the CPU more highly and consumes my batteries an order of magnitude faster.
This is a major problem for me with BBC iPlayer: perhaps this project gives me a route towards a solution?
Scott, I think Javascript has won because HTML5 comes with a component called "Canvas".
Without the magic of canvas , Javascript do nothing. Remember the first age of Silverlight when in it enfancy was a canvas made by Microsoft with javascript to create beautiful effects.
What is more difficult to understand is how a team composed by two brothers can create a product like fayde and not Microsoft focusing only on HTLM5 with the DOM and all the default and implementations you have to hide with plethora Javascript Library?
Without the magic of canvas , Javascript do nothing. Remember the first age of Silverlight when in it enfancy was a canvas made by Microsoft with javascript to create beautiful effects.
What is more difficult to understand is how a team composed by two brothers can create a product like fayde and not Microsoft focusing only on HTLM5 with the DOM and all the default and implementations you have to hide with plethora Javascript Library?
Well, Shumway is still an HTML experiment. I don't understand the logic of an unfinished product without enough testing can ever win.
I started collaborating on the Fayde project recently. It is time to know that there are awesome alternatives to migrating big projects made on Silverlight. Also that there are almost to two UI canvas controls libraries out there (including Fayde), and this project and thanks to your post I think this project will start to jump in.
Thx as always Scott!!!!
Thx as always Scott!!!!
BTW another time, Scott you've demonstrated you are a visionary "javascript is the assembly language of the web" (jsil,cshtml5,typescript,atscript,fayde,shumway...) . And yeah that's ok, I wanna still program with XAML and a languaage like Typescript (C# friendly) than ES3/ES5 javascript....
JavaScript Has Won you claim for some reason.I guess you have to seem to move with the times.Once upon a time ASP.NET could do everything and it was to reduce all the JavaScript you had to put in your LOB web app,which you didn't have to and you worked with third part component vendors and you focused on you LOB.That was once what the thing and though still is.Ya there are a lot of projects kicking out in JavaScript from Google and other people who have lot of time to GITHUB crap frameworks without any proper samples or documentation and NO proper support.
I'll echo a poster above, I'm just not interested in giving up C# for the seemingly endless JS packages that keep popping up. I can use jQuery, Knockout, Angular, Singular, Bootstrap etc but it makes me hate programming, it doesn't even feel like programming.
I loved Silverlight because most of my day jobs were doing LOB apps and as anyone in the business knows, it's never, "heres the data, it'll always look like this, put it in a grid or in fields on this page." Its madness and requires a ton of flexibility and a solid language behind it. I could do it with Webforms, SL made it easy. Doing it with JS frameworks/HTML5/CSS took ages longer and forced me to start saying, "Its going to take too long and I won't look exactly like you want."
Now I use WPF and it is wonderful, I never have to say no or compromise, more often I can over deliver in less time. Like the user above, if the day comes that I can't write real C# anymore or something similar, I'm out. I'll manage or teach or something but I love programming too much to ruin it with this stuff.
The web needs to be reborn instead of endlessly hacking together an old technology into frameworks we have to hope never get abandoned, that are just emulating what we already have in C#.
I loved Silverlight because most of my day jobs were doing LOB apps and as anyone in the business knows, it's never, "heres the data, it'll always look like this, put it in a grid or in fields on this page." Its madness and requires a ton of flexibility and a solid language behind it. I could do it with Webforms, SL made it easy. Doing it with JS frameworks/HTML5/CSS took ages longer and forced me to start saying, "Its going to take too long and I won't look exactly like you want."
Now I use WPF and it is wonderful, I never have to say no or compromise, more often I can over deliver in less time. Like the user above, if the day comes that I can't write real C# anymore or something similar, I'm out. I'll manage or teach or something but I love programming too much to ruin it with this stuff.
The web needs to be reborn instead of endlessly hacking together an old technology into frameworks we have to hope never get abandoned, that are just emulating what we already have in C#.
I'm surprised to see no one mention Dart from Google in the comments as of yet: https://www.dartlang.org/
The language appears similar to C#, however you still have to deal with HTML/CSS.
The language appears similar to C#, however you still have to deal with HTML/CSS.
Glad to see i'm not the only person who has issues with Javascript being the only web language. I do use it and have used various frameworks over time but it always seems hacky and i'm never entirely happy with it. I just know I could have developed the equivalent in another language much faster with confidence in the code quality. I just feel Javascript is a huge step backwards from other languages and good programming techniques.
The web needs some alternative languages and not ones built on top of Javascript.
The web needs some alternative languages and not ones built on top of Javascript.
Seems I'm not the only one who has issues with javascript then! I've tried to love it but can't. We still use Silverlight (along with OpenRIAServices) for all our LOB development and I think we'll be doing that for sometime to come until something better comes along. We can't justify the loss of productivity that would be involved in switching to HTML5+JS. I think I read somewhere that JS has been nicknamed the "assembly language of the web". Somebody has to come up with something better sooner or later (I hope).
JavaScript as the assembly language of the web sounds like JavaScript is a very "bad" thing to use for serious development. But we use applications like Google Maps that are built with JavaScript. Even there's node.js winning many (server-side) developers hearts. I don't think that JavaScript is a bad thing, but that it can be improved. Approaches like Dart are nice, but they aren't backwards compatible. TypeScript is, and it offers everything that a serious developer wants (type system, great tooling). Therefore I think somebody (Microsoft) has already come up with something better (TypeScript). It doesn't violate the monopoly of JavaScript in the browser, but takes it as their advantage, as it allows you to write everything you want in "normal" JavaScript, but also introduces all the missing features developers demand from a language that is used for large-scale software development.
Maybe is not the end of flash, maybe people will start using it again :)
JS as the assembler language/lowest common denominator of the Web. Sigh. While these projects are welcome improvements over the the current affairs I feel that we could have had something better by now. The "best" solution IMHO would be a shared IL/VM for the major browser engines not bound to a particular language. Some years back I had the (very naive) hope MSIL/Mono could fill that gap. Well, maybe someday we'll have something like that.
youtube just dropped flash for html5 video. Shumway would have to be ported to all other browsers vendors.
Adobe Flas Pro ( the authoring tool) has already moved in to publishing for canvas and webgl. The implementation details would have to be standardized so that it can offer a consistent run time just like it did when Adobe was the sole distributor of the run time. TOO MANY THINGS NEED TO ALIGN HERE
Adobe Flas Pro ( the authoring tool) has already moved in to publishing for canvas and webgl. The implementation details would have to be standardized so that it can offer a consistent run time just like it did when Adobe was the sole distributor of the run time. TOO MANY THINGS NEED TO ALIGN HERE
One thing that still has been untouchable is Silverlight + IIS Smooth-streaming for video. There just isn't anything even remotely close to the quality and performance (fast seek especially, no buffering) out there.
What Niclas said.
It can never replace Silverlight. The speed of SL is unmatched. We still develop OOB apps and they are working super. Of course it is not for simple web pages. You should use web for that. For example, office like applications build in html web just sucks. Programming it and using it. Yes I did years active web dev too. I just tolerate JS and try not to use it. Which JS framework is now in fashion? Spine? Meteor? SL just works.
Hope the guy who diverted the resources to Windows RT is working for Oracle now I hope and mess stuff up there.
It can never replace Silverlight. The speed of SL is unmatched. We still develop OOB apps and they are working super. Of course it is not for simple web pages. You should use web for that. For example, office like applications build in html web just sucks. Programming it and using it. Yes I did years active web dev too. I just tolerate JS and try not to use it. Which JS framework is now in fashion? Spine? Meteor? SL just works.
Hope the guy who diverted the resources to Windows RT is working for Oracle now I hope and mess stuff up there.
Still more comments about how bad the javascript + HTML + CSS trio is. Is this really the future of programming, are we not going to get something better?
JavaScript has won? Are you sure? It's terrible compared to Silverlight as flash. Still lacks many of the features which Silverlight/flash has. JavaScript needs to die.
Silverlight is not just Xaml, Silverlight is not "just a plugin in the browser", Silverlight was used to be WPF Everywhere, with the help of Moonlight. It has a much better deployment capability than Click Once and no dependencies (if not out of browser) with Windows. Very big applications has been developed in Silverlight when Javascript was not mature enough, now the only route for this applications will be a rewrite nodejs / commonjs angular / ionic etc so they can be ran everywhere / share code / layout etc or limit it to WPF (maybe universal..) and windows platform.
Yes Javascript has won not as a replacement of Silverlight but as a solution for everything. If .net wants to compete the solution will be to open source Silverlight / WPF E so it can run freely everywhere. We might even get a new browser that can run .net and javascript ;)
Yes Javascript has won not as a replacement of Silverlight but as a solution for everything. If .net wants to compete the solution will be to open source Silverlight / WPF E so it can run freely everywhere. We might even get a new browser that can run .net and javascript ;)
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Some completely different designed cameras work higher than others when diving under water.
Cooled or Uncooled - Most infrared cameras fall under the "uncooled" category, which means that camera just isn't equipped with just about any onboard cooling
mechanism. waterproof cameras dslr cameras inexpensive The Fuji Fine Pix F440 packs
slightly more zoom than any other cameras in the class.
To capture the daily and occasional moments of life one wants a best compact camera, whether any
memorable moment in their holidays or capture any memorable event of life.
These two-in-one cameras, as earlier mentioned,
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Cooled or Uncooled - Most infrared cameras fall under the "uncooled" category, which means that camera just isn't equipped with just about any onboard cooling
mechanism. waterproof cameras dslr cameras inexpensive The Fuji Fine Pix F440 packs
slightly more zoom than any other cameras in the class.
To capture the daily and occasional moments of life one wants a best compact camera, whether any
memorable moment in their holidays or capture any memorable event of life.
These two-in-one cameras, as earlier mentioned,
not only cut the variety of cameras needed, but also divide the amount of domes needed for that system in half.
FWIW, CSHTML5 Beta 3 was announced today: http://cshtml5.com/press-releases/2015-02-28-beta3-released-with-wcf-soap-rest-xmlserializer-and-more.aspx
If you wasted years learning, developing in and then transitioning away from Silverlight, I am sorry. This is going to sound harsh: it's all your fault. You should have seen it coming and avoided the temptation of the gilded cage.
I agree with Stilgar. I'd rather change my line of work than have to suffer through JS/HTML/CSS. It's so painfully unrewarding to see your web app dissipate into irrelevance after just a few months/years.
My 2009 Flash app is still serving up content and still looks cool. My 1996 desktop app looks dated but runs faster and better then ever!
My 2012 web app has been re-written, re-vamped and revised a dozen times over by a half dozen different teams. We've all failed to deliver with this forever failing Dinosaur technology.
When will the HTML straw man be set on fire?
My 2009 Flash app is still serving up content and still looks cool. My 1996 desktop app looks dated but runs faster and better then ever!
My 2012 web app has been re-written, re-vamped and revised a dozen times over by a half dozen different teams. We've all failed to deliver with this forever failing Dinosaur technology.
When will the HTML straw man be set on fire?
@MichaelD, @Scott Hanselman,
First, thanks for the post!
CsHtml5 is a nice project, but is not open-source and is a commercial project just like Xamarin is.
The idea of porting C#+XAML to HTML5+CSS3+JS is not new. We were praying for it since Silverlight's death. But MS decided to kill XAML and C# and put JS in the front. C# (and especially XAML), even with the opening of .NET, is far from being a cross-platform technology. Unless you're willing to pay a fortune for Xamarin or the like.
Anyhow CsHtml5 is half-way thru, and doesn't really give a chance for people to contribute. I hope Microsoft acquires it or a similar project early on and makes it all open-source. Right-now the only trade-offs for Silverlight are either far for being complete or total rip-offs.
With CsHtml5+Apache Cordova, it could now really be easy to create fully cross-platform native apps with C#-XAML.
From the post itself and the way it's presented, doesn't look like this is really ever going to happen. Anybody who invested his soul in Silverlight (and RIA! oh RIA! does anybody even remember this name? who'd believe this was a diamond only a couple of years ago!), should get together and put effort in JS and other universal languages besides C#.
I hope MS will endorse back CsXaml again, and give a proper compensation for all the Silverlight victims.
First, thanks for the post!
CsHtml5 is a nice project, but is not open-source and is a commercial project just like Xamarin is.
The idea of porting C#+XAML to HTML5+CSS3+JS is not new. We were praying for it since Silverlight's death. But MS decided to kill XAML and C# and put JS in the front. C# (and especially XAML), even with the opening of .NET, is far from being a cross-platform technology. Unless you're willing to pay a fortune for Xamarin or the like.
Anyhow CsHtml5 is half-way thru, and doesn't really give a chance for people to contribute. I hope Microsoft acquires it or a similar project early on and makes it all open-source. Right-now the only trade-offs for Silverlight are either far for being complete or total rip-offs.
With CsHtml5+Apache Cordova, it could now really be easy to create fully cross-platform native apps with C#-XAML.
From the post itself and the way it's presented, doesn't look like this is really ever going to happen. Anybody who invested his soul in Silverlight (and RIA! oh RIA! does anybody even remember this name? who'd believe this was a diamond only a couple of years ago!), should get together and put effort in JS and other universal languages besides C#.
I hope MS will endorse back CsXaml again, and give a proper compensation for all the Silverlight victims.
Comments are closed.
http://cshtml5.com
You can do *anything* with JavaScript... it's any wonder why MSFT doesn't officially port .NET to it like CSHTML5 (and JSIL, which you mentioned, it's based off of) is attempting to do. It should have been done YEARSSSSSSSSS ago after Mix'11. :P When MSFT cancelled Silverlight, THIS is what should have been announced!